doomed bird of providence Blind Mouths Eat (CD, £10.50)

label: Front and Follow

Limited first edition of 250, in card sleeve with extended inner sleeve. Fresh from the Collision/Detection series and The Outer Church compilation, Front & Follow present Blind Mouths Eat – The Doomed Bird of Providence’s follow-up to the acclaimed Will Ever Pray. Blind Mouths Eat is the 2nd album by The Doomed Bird of Providence. Continuing an exploration into the darkest regions of Australian colonial history the album takes the style and content of their first long player (Will Ever Pray) into a more violent, death ridden landscape supported by a more eclectic and experimental approach to song writing, and featuring an extended line-up including Katie English aka Isnaj Dui. Thematically the album is broken into three parts with an overarching theme of helplessness in the face of terror and impending death. The first five songs loosely explore the sealers of Kangaroo Island. Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia, became a refuge for escaped convicts and jumped-ship seamen who were able to generate a subsistence through the selling of seal skins at a time when the seal population was in abundance. However they were unable to survive in the landscape of a sparse, windblown and isolated island without relying on those who had refined survival skills tailored to that area. As a result the sealers abducted indigenous women and their children from neighbouring islands and the South Australian coast. The abductions and the subsequent treatment of those abducted was uniformly brutal and cruel. Often attacking a tribe and taking all females, these groups would gradually die out. The next three songs are based on a locally published diary of a woman in the late 19th century. The diary discusses little but familiar goings on around her town (local events, family, ships that have arrived). At a point in the diary however she mentions waking up in the morning having coughed up blood throughout the night. In addition to this she recalls a dream she had that night of walking through a town street in a funeral march to the cemetery where a local was to be buried. The diary itself is punctuated with increasing consultations with the doctor then finishes abruptly. The woman had been suffering the symptoms of tuberculosis and had died. The last song is an instrumental that runs for almost 19 minutes. Based on one Australia's worst ever natural disasters. The category 5 Cyclone Mahina took place in 1899 killing over 400 people. The track attempts to evoke the disaster and it's aftermath where amongst other things dolphins were found strewn on 50 foot cliffs on Flinders Island. Tracklisting: 1. Hidden Within the Day 2. Trail of Bones 3. The Cave of the Doughboys 4. Hand From Your Neck 5. Diabolically Decorated 6. To Those Who Are Most Hungry 7. Ships They Come And Go 8. Through the Streets of Albany 9. Snatched and Devoured 10. Mahina